


damnatio ad bestias

by Wagandea



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-03 23:13:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6631057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wagandea/pseuds/Wagandea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wants to stop fucking this up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	damnatio ad bestias

He wants to do this without having to tell the whole story, without having to prove something, without having to explain why he’s partially immune to fear toxin when he picks up the shattered vial sitting in the evidence bin Oracle has sitting out for him in the clocktower. He’s not sure why she called  _ him _ , anyway, unless she knows, and she has to, nothing slips past her.

He raises the broken glass to his lips, and Barbara reaches for him, alarmed, but not before the sharp edge presses to his tongue, a chemical taste mixing with the hint of blood.

“Jason--”

“It’s fine,” he says, a dull shrug, and tosses the glass back into the bin. “That’s gotta be an imitation fear toxin or something. The real shit tastes like strawberries, Scarecrow ain’t involved here.”

She doesn’t ask him how he knows that, and that’s great. Just says thank you and sends him on his way, but he can tell she  _ wants  _ to. Jason doesn’t know what he’d say, anyway.

\--

He tells everyone else they worked together to bring down some drug lords operating in Scarecrow’s territory once, which is only half the truth. He leaves how they actually met, the part where Scarecrow’s mask came off in the middle of the fight and Jason had been left captivated by his eyes. He leaves out the part where Scarecrow helped him out of a sticky situation, murdered about twenty five Joker goons and sat on the rooftops with him until the panic attack subsided. He leaves out when Jonathan had accidentally let his real name slip and Jason had snuck into his 8:00 class just to hear him talk.

It’s not something he feels like he  _ can _ explain. It’s a collection of small moments drowning in a feeling Jason’s not sure he  _ wants _ to put meaning to, so he doesn’t.

“Hey, my territory kinda overlaps with his, and I don’t really wanna be starting shit with Scarecrow,” he tells Nightwing instead. “Figure an unlikely truce was my best option.”

No one believes him. He gets used to the uneasy looks, the way Bruce is keeping an even closer eye on him than usual. He knows they all think Scarecrow’s got to his head somehow, because as far as they’re concerned, Jason’s the fucking weak link and if anyone’s gonna be taken advantage of, it’s him.

He doesn’t know how to say it’s the other way around without revealing the way he’d pinned Jonathan down, pushed him up against the rough metal edges of a fire escape and kissed him breathless, the way burlap felt against bare skin, the way Jonathan’s long legs had wrapped around his waist. So he doesn’t.

\--

There’s a moment where Jason thinks he can see past the act, past the cold collected front Jonathan always puts up. He’s sitting in Jonathan’s bathtub and there’s blood everywhere because he just took a bullet out on the field, there’s blood coating Jonathan’s slender fingers because he’s just finished bandaging Jason up as best he can.

But something’s wrong in his expression, in his eyes, and Jason reaches for one of his hands, blood smearing between their skin.

“Think I’m gonna make it, doc?” he asks, and he means it as a joke or maybe he doesn’t. Jonathan doesn’t take it as one anyway, for all his usual dry humor.

“Possibly,” Jonathan says, lips pursed, but that’s not all he’s going to say, and Jason braces himself for whatever’s coming next. There’s a reason they don’t talk about these things, why they’ve both been careful to keep it quick and dirty, fucking on borrowed time half-costumed in shadowed back alleys. Emotional attachment isn’t a luxury that either of them can afford.

“Jason, I--”

But Jason drags him down into a kiss instead, all tongue and teeth and blood on his lips. It doesn’t mean anything.

\--

Jonathan’s cracking, but Jason’s cracking too. They pretend these parts aren’t significant, the parts where Jason inexplicably follows Scarecrow home after a night of patrol and they sit on Jonathan’s couch talking for hours until Jason falls asleep on his shoulder.

Jason’s not supposed to trust anyone this way. But Jonathan is--he’s not playing therapist, not exactly, but he’s holding himself out, an offering. Whatever Jason needs. He wants to be used so Jason is using him, keeping him as a rock to hold onto, a safe place. Jason wants to crawl inside him. He has a dream where he does that. Where he breaks open Jonathan’s ribs, gets inside the hollow of his chest and curls up with his still-beating heart. He has a dream where Jonathan says he doesn’t have one. His eyes tell a different story. It’s easy to tell the look of someone who’s in love. Jason desperately wishes it wasn’t. 

\--

But Scarecrow is using  _ him _ , too. Everyone tells him this.

“Yes,” Jonathan says, head tipped to one side, pale eyes fixing him in place. But Jason won’t let him say the rest. He tastes like strawberries. Jason swallows his words for him, the feeling of broken glass on his tongue.

_ I wanted to be loved unconditionally. You were just vulnerable enough to use, just damaged enough to stay. _

He’s getting really tired of Jonathan painting himself as the bad guy here.

\--

So Jonathan is fucked up and lonely and screwed over by the world. Jason’s heard this one before, it’s a familiar story--they all are, every single one of them who thinks it’s fun to put on a mask and run around Gotham at night, doesn’t matter who you are or what side you’re on.

It still doesn’t stop the ache in his chest when, tongue loosened by brandy, Jonathan recounts the tragedy of Mary Keeny and her great-grandson. He tells it in the third person like a ghost story, the hint of a deep southern accent coloring his words. 

So Jason tells him about Catherine. It’s evening the score, and Jonathan sits and listens and they drink and they talk and swap horror stories and somewhere near the end Jonathan tells him no one’s ever loved him. His blue eyes are burning. Jason can’t escape his gaze. He changes the subject.

\--

But he always ends up here, in Jonathan’s bathtub, blood everywhere, Jonathan stitching him up and telling him--

“You need to be more careful,” and his eyes are cold, voice tense and wavering just slightly, a hair away from snapping. Jason barely feels the needle tugging at his skin. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”

He bites back a cheeky  _ again _ . He bites back a defensive  _ I know _ . This isn’t how the world is supposed to work. Jason’s a dead man walking and no one is supposed to miss him anymore. He’s not supposed to leave behind anything that matters, not this time.

So maybe he wanted something more than that. Whatever. It’s not like he knows what to do with it now that he’s got it, anyway.

\--

He wants to stop fucking this up. He wants to stop waking up in a bed that isn’t his own with the taste of strawberries on the back of his tongue. He wants to stop having dreams where Jonathan says he loves him.

The only way to get rid of your fears is to face them. Someone told him that, once. It seemed like bullshit at the time. It still seems like bullshit.

Jason lets out a breath into Jonathan’s hair, the barest hint of a murmured  _ I love you  _ against his scalp. Jonathan shifts his sleep. He doesn’t wake up. It doesn’t matter.


End file.
